


A Lifetime of Little Deaths

by tawg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, sastielweek, season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is not designed to understand things beyond his purpose. He doesn’t understand the touch of skin to skin, the plans set in motion. But he learns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lifetime of Little Deaths

All angels are made with a purpose. Castiel’s purpose is achieved when the first seal is broken. Then one of his brothers comes to him, and tells him that his assignment is not over. The righteous man is praying for him. Castiel must go to Earth.

Castiel is uncertain; this was not in his design. But Zachariah tells him that the prayers to Castiel’s name are a symbol of God’s will. God did not create an infinite number of angels, and there are battles to fight.

He tells Castiel that there is work to be done.

~*~

Choice and decision are complicated elements. From the moment Castiel was made, he existed at all points of his life along that single path that led from his creation until the fulfilment of his purpose. And then the first human who had been righteous in life journeyed to Hell in death, and Castiel saw two paths twisting and twining away from that moment.

~*~

Castiel thinks that confusion is best expressed in the furrow between Sam’s eyebrows, the way his skin tastes when his body moves slowly and Castiel has to strip his clothes away. Castiel is less than a thousand years old when he takes Sam’s hand for the first time, sees the mess of emotions on his face that it takes him lifetimes to understand and untangle. The heat of a palm, the furrow of eyebrows, the curiosity inside Castiel at these strange, new things.

~*~

The righteous took up no blade in Hell, and Castiel saw one path closed to him.

~*~

One thing that Castiel wishes that he could explain is that there have been ninety righteous souls to enter hell, spanning the times that Castiel has touched within. In the time that Dean is there, two more are dragged through its gates. Even while Dean is stretched on the rack Castiel’s future forks and diverges and detours, a path for each righteous man and woman to come, to pick up the knife. 

Castiel is used to these new paths, uncertain and fluctuating numbers as he touches from moment to moment. Closing and opening and as organic and confused as the spread and flow of hormones in a blood stream.

(“Why must we wait?” Uriel grumbles. “Any of these will do, with your guidance.”

“No,” Castiel replies. It is not his duty to interfere.)

The minute Dean picks up the knife, all of the other paths close it him. It’s like losing limbs. It had been known that when the righteous man chose himself Castiel’s voice would ring through heaven, heralding his brothers to battle.

Castiel had never known that his voice would be a scream of agony.

~*~

When Castiel first walks on earth with Uriel, his voice makes a child’s ear bleed. They shift back to a time when souls were more resilient and angels more prevalent. They shift forwards to the world after the Apocalypse – a landscape that all angels may tread, though few do. They shift back to a motel room near the Seal of Samhain and Castiel takes Sam Winchester’s hands. He has seen the end of the Earth but he doesn’t know the words for the shapes of emotion on Sam’s face. He shifts back, to a dirty barn filled with the stink of scared men. He speaks, and Dean hears him.

~*~

The breaking of seals is the first sign of the apocalypse, but Castiel knows that despite the lore there is nothing certain about the end of the world. One man must break the first seal, and a different man must break the last. There is no guarantee, Castiel tells Zachariah, that Sam will set Lucifer free. 

Castiel is barely a few hundred years old as he stands beside Zachariah and watches as Sam and a demon fornicate. He doesn’t understand humans and their ways. He doesn’t understand demons and how they have come to be, their ability to take a vessel without consent.

Zachariah tells Castiel that Sam Winchester will be the one. He smiles with all four of his faces, his eyes cold and eager.

It is the first time that Castiel does not understand one of his brothers.

~*~

Humans have so many choices to make. Castiel does not understand why they find it so hard to make the right one. When he first meets Dean Winchester, he wonders why this man struggles so much with accepting his fate as the righteous man. And then he learns. He walks among humans, he sees his brothers slain in battles over the seals. He follows orders that make him uneasy, but he is a soldier and such is his life. 

He learns to resent Dean. If he hadn’t picked up the knife… All of those righteous men and women before him, and Dean had to be the one to break.

Resentment is the downward slant of Sam’s mouth as brothers argue.

~*~

He stands in the corner of a motel room. It is empty – two brothers tired and angry, stalking away from each other. Castiel doesn’t understand their mutual abandonment. Dean is his charge, Dean fulfilled Castiel’s purpose. Castiel turns, and follows Sam.

~*~

Jealousy is the smell of sulphur at the soft skin where jaw leads into the lobe of an ear. Jealousy is Sam’s large hands grabbing at his vessel, anger at angels who dragged Dean out of hell but have nothing but scorn for this boy who is being groomed to be king 

(Azazel was an angel, but Castiel does not tell Sam this.)

(Castiel watched Sam’s brief moments in hell, but he does not think Sam needs to know.)

Jealousy is the fit of mouths together as kisses are exchanged in fits of anger, regret, resentment. Every emotion but love.

(Castiel is an angel, of course he loves.)

Jealousy is the taste of free will in Sam’s sweat, even while Castiel is pressed and pinned into ever tightening corners.

~*~

“You would have killed me,” Anael says by way of greeting. She is an angel once more, but forever changed. 

“We’re at war,” Castiel says by way of explanation. It is nothing personal, this fratricide. The two angels stand side by side, unseen as Sam fucks the demon, as he cuts her open and licks blood from her bosom. Castiel doesn’t understand the appeal. Doesn’t understand why he keeps coming back.

“We’re always at war,” Anael tells him. “But so few of us realise that we are at war with ourselves.”

Sam finishes, the muscles of his back bunching and flexing. Castiel watches impassively. “Do you think God planned for this war?” she asks, and then shifts away before he can answer.

Castiel watches the strong lines of Sam’s body as he dresses, hears Sam’s phone vibrate with a call from Dean that will go unanswered, feels joy and happiness and horror as seals break. Castiel wonders if God had any plans at all.

~*~

Castiel stands amidst a wreck of cars – twisted metal and shattered glass, and one smooth and untroubled body laid out on the asphalt. Castiel looks down at this paired brother. He is slowly getting used to seeing the human around the angel – seeing the form the Winchesters view when they gaze upon him – the pale lines of skin bracketed by the sad ash of wings. 

The skin of Castiel’s palms tingle and itch from a handshake. He can feel the loneliness that stabs into Sam without the boy understanding why. He can feel the stamp of Heaven on the precision of this event. He can’t understand why.

The furrow between eyebrows, the itch of a palm, the ache. Castiel does not understand, and for the first time he is concerned by this.

~*~

Castiel flies away from blood and humans and such confusing things. He takes refuge with his brothers in Alaska. Swords are drawn and voices are raised in prayer to their absent father. Fifteen fishermen on a boat go blind from the grace and the glory. There is one path before him, ever-shortening, and Castiel flees.

~*~

Sam dreams of sex, of Castiel’s form crowding against him in a small bathroom that could exist in thousands of motels. Castiel sits on a blue toilet seat and watches curiously as Sam’s dream of him presses the miles of warm, tanned flesh against the cool and cracking tiles. A fully clothed body grinding against the admirable twist of naked flesh. Water is raining down idly on them both, a detail that Sam’s mind can’t focus on with the rutting of two bodies. Castiel takes over the scenery, and the shower cascades down warm, consistent water on these two puppets of Sam’s subconsciousness. 

The dream Castiel asks Sam if he wants this. Sam says yes.

The angel Castiel tells Sam that he always has a choice. Sam is confused.

The taste of water running over the furrow between Sam’s eyebrows. The feel of fingers fisting in fabric, but of course Sam is not touching him at all. The dream stinks of sulphur. Sam’s moans do not echo in the imperfect landscape of his dreams. Castiel hates this boy and the stubbornness in him. Hates and envies him.

~*~

Castiel walks upon the newly-made earth. He can feel his life as a new thing stretching before him as a single, simple line. He can feel the life he has lived tangling and twining behind him, contradicting the simple devotion that has defined him. He is older than planets and angry at the things he has learned. 

He can feel Anael millions of years ahead of him, touching the soul of a teacher in New York. He can feel Uriel millions of years behind him, a thought about to be given form. He can feel potential and remorse. He can feel the smoothness of Sam Winchester’s hair against the skin between his fingers. He can feel the knife Dean lodges in his vessel’s heart. 

He can feel Lucifer. Beautiful wonderful terrible Lucifer, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Watch where you walk, little brother,” he says. Castiel looks down, sees his feet in the murky pond water that is the earth, sees the clumsy cluster of cells and circulation transcending from ichthyoid to amphibian. “We have big plans for that fish,” Lucifer says with a laugh. The sound fills Castiel with hope and love, because he is an angel and there are things beyond his control.

The feel of Sam’s hair. 

Big plans.

A hand on a knife.

So close, Castiel thinks. One step and life would become easy.

But he is an angel. Free choice does not come naturally.

In other years and on other paths, he feels Anael sinking sword into grace. Castiel flees.

~*~

Zachariah finds him. Finds him and grips him tight. Torn from his vessel and Castiel has never felt imperfect in his own form before this moment. There is a war to be fought, and there is no time for wayward soldiers. He carries Castiel to the end of his path, holds him there hovering over the very end of his life. Castiel twists and fights, but he is old and tired and Zachariah has within him the fire of the righteous. He holds Castiel in place, lets him feel that last second of his life over and over again. The pain and the fear, the desperation clawing at him. Castiel screams. Screams and thrashes but nothing can overpower the quadruple smiles on Zachariah’s faces. Angels do not have an afterlife. The end is the end, and it is magnificent and terrifying. 

Castiel doesn’t want to die.

There is a war to be won, Zachariah explains. And nothing will stop Heaven’s might. Castiel concedes, and when Zachariah releases him he falls trembling back to earth.

~*~

Castiel feels lust in the way Dean’s teeth sink into a burger, a carnivore satiating his desire even as Dean’s stomach still struggles with blood. He feels it in the way Uriel’s fist connects with Castiel’s face, the heavy desire for change. He feels it in the searing arc of Balthazar falling in the battle against Lucifer and never again rising, the curiosity of the unknown. He feels it in the pit of his stomach when Sam Winchester is strapped to a bed in a room made of iron. 

He had always assumed that lust was a kind of curiosity. He is unprepared for want, unprepared for the urge to claim, to write his name on the fragile membrane of every cell of Sam’s skin, to carve a warning to all other beings into Sam’s very bones. He stretches out to his future, but can find no place to land on the small strip of it that remains. There is a wall ahead of him and it bears the mark of death.

Castiel reaches out a hand and presses it to Sam’s skin. He is full of life. Life and soul and grace and sulphur, and Castiel wants it all. Wants every part of Sam and wants to be Sam, wants to embrace and encompass and engrain his future with all of the potential that Sam holds.

The softness of his hair.

The skin at his jaw.

The press against a wall.

Time. When had Castiel become so aware of time?

He covers mouth with mouth, body with body, fever with fervour.

He opens the door to this cage of iron and good intentions, and flees.

~*~

Uriel raises his fist and Castiel can only stare at his brother. He is deflated, the fight gone out of him. He wonders if he would mind dying like this, if the wall of the end approaching him with each blow from this brother who loves him would be a relief to rest upon. Dying, he thinks, would make things so much easier. 

He wonders at Uriel’s disobedience. Wonders at Zachariah’s hand at the back of his neck. Wonders at Dean Winchester and the weight of a knife in his hand.

Castiel’s life would have been very different if only Dean had been a better person.

“Are you surprised?” Anael asks as she helps Castiel to his feet.

Castiel doesn’t know what he is.

~*~

He flies, he flees. Takes refuge in a small, sweet heaven. There is green grass and blue skies but Castiel sees none of it, sitting on a bench with his head in his hands. Sitting on a bench beside Dean Winchester. Sitting on a bench by the Seal of Samhain. Has the world ended already? He has no room, can’t move. The end of his path is so close and he has no _time_. No time for these childish humans and their wavering trust, no time for their sins and their mistakes and the mess they keep pulling him into. 

Maybe Dean is talking. Maybe it’s a memory. Maybe when he closes his eyes he’ll stop seeing Sam Winchester, his mouth still thick with demon blood. 

He rests his head in his hands (feel’s Sam’s hair sliding through his fingers). Goddamned humans and all of those choices that they refuse to take. He hears wings approaching. He flees, heading always closer to the end he is trying to escape.

Perhaps there is no choice.

~*~

Castiel sits in Hell, and watches the righteous as they are opened up and set aflame. He has no feelings about this. His purpose is watch for the breaking of the first seal. He is young and he is old, and his sits by his own side as the righteous scream and demons laugh. 

It is the way it is meant to be.

Castiel has spent more years in Hell than there will exist in the lifetime of the Earth. He has watched the first souls enter it. He has built the walls of this prison with his hands. Of course souls would flock to an angel, even a fallen one. Of course they would be corrupted.

Every angel has a purpose.

Castiel watches Dean take up the knife. Watches it over six hundred times. There is no guarantee that Sam will break the last seal. Castiel has seen the angel who is to watch over the vessels of Satan slain. Wings of ash spreading across asphalt, the wail of car alarms the only sounds of grief. He is young and does not understand why. He is old and understands the reason if not the motivation. He has blood on his hands and has no idea where it came from.

There is no choice.

~*~

Sam’s face is confused when Castiel kisses him. Sam is young, and Castiel’s grace distorts Sam’s view of him. It is Halloween, and Sam is twenty-two years old, and has been having nightmares that he refuses to talk about. He tastes like cheap alcohol and cheaper candy. He tastes like his girlfriend, like the fire that is already a small flame inside her. He tastes like confusion, and Castiel don’t know how to tell him that no, this is coherency. The last sane moment of Sam Winchester’s life. 

Sam’s face is confused as he is stretched out on the rack, as demons mill around him. He bears the mark of their king, the crown of a favourite but he has died and death is a failure. They are all waiting – Sam, the demons, the angels. Waiting with a stillness that stretches until it is taut and singing under the strain. And then a deal is made, and the other half to Castiel’s pair grips Sam tight and returns him to his body. 

Sam’s face is confused when a man collapses in front of him. Sam is undersized and over-cautious for his age, and Castiel doesn’t know how to act like a human any more than Sam realises that the man in front of him is something other. Castiel pressed a hand to Sam’s forehead, and blesses him awkwardly in the human tongue. Sam’s ears start to bleed.

Sam’s face is confused when Castiel presses him back into the bed. Intent and furious and stripping away protests as he strips away clothes. He doesn’t know if Sam has met him yet. Doesn’t know where his feet are falling. He is running out of everything. Is nearing the end of his path as he sucks Sam’s cock into his mouth, as he feels Sam’s fingers gripping the hair of his vessel, feels sound and hope and relief. Feels time running out, and Dean’s footsteps are approaching the door.

Sam’s face is confused when Castiel takes his hand. Another motel room. The Seal of Samhain. Castiel is glad to meet Sam at last.

~*~

Castiel doesn’t know how to tell Dean that there is nothing unique in the path they have followed, that he is but one of hundreds of candidates just as Sam is just one of hundreds who have been groomed. Castiel doesn’t know how to tell Dean that he feels no regrets, that of all the paths that had been open to him before Dean picked up the knife, Castiel would still walk down this one again. Castiel has watched humans and waited for the breaking of the first seal since they were cells in an ocean with no awareness of land, but he still doesn’t understand them, still can’t express himself in words that Dean can hear. 

Castiel doesn’t have the time to find the right words.

He meets Raphael in the cluttered kitchen of a prophet, sees the end of the path before him but fails to see his own end. He feels confusion, feels it etched out onto his own countenance in the perfect mimicry of the furrow between Sam’s eyebrows. He feels the archangel slam into him, tearing him apart and Castiel feels the love that all angels feel when they encounter their brothers. 

He feels Anael’s grace. He feels Gabriel’s descent, Balthazar’s death. He feels Uriel’s fist colliding with his face. He feels Sam’s hair between his fingers. He feels the end of his own life, and confusion, and the petrifying terror of a flicker in the darkness. He feels his last moment as an angel. Sulphur and sweat on his tongue. Love, and fear, and hatred, and remorse. Big plans. An almost flawless execution.

He feels carpet under his feet, the weak October sun at his back. His hands are wrapped around Sam’s, and he looks up at this boy who was never Castiel’s intent but has always been his destination. He holds Sam tight, sees the confusion on Sam’s face as Castiel waits for the world to end.

This is his choice.


End file.
